New York, March 27, 1899.
MY FRIENDS: When one whom we hold dear has reached the end of life and
laid his burden down, it is but natural for us, his friends, to pay the
tribute of respect and love; to tell his virtues, to express our sense
of loss and speak above the sculptured clay some word of hope.
Our friend, about whose bier we stand, was in the highest, noblest sense
a man. He was not born to wealth--he was his own providence, his own
teacher. With him work was worship and labor was his only prayer. He
depended on himself, and was as independent as it is possible for man to
be. He hated debt, and obligation was a chain that scarred his flesh. He
lived a long and useful life. In age he reaped with joy what he had cown
in youth. He did not linger "until his flame lacked oil," but with his
senses keen, his mind undimmed, and with his arms filled with gathered
sheaves, in an instant, painlessly, unconsciously, he passed from
happiness and health to the realm of perfect peace. We need not mourn
for him, but for ourselves, for those he loved.
He was an absolutely honest man--a man who kept his word, who fulfilled
his contracts, gave heaped and rounded measure and discharged all
obligations with the fabled chivalry of ancient knights. He was
absolutely honest, not only with others but with himself. To his last
moment his soul was stainless. He was true to his ideal--true to his
thought, and what his brain conceived his lips expressed. He refused to
pretend. He knew that to believe without evidence was impossible to
the sound and sane, and that to say you believed when you did not, was
possible only to the hypocrite or coward. He did not believe in the
supernatural. He was a natural man and lived a natural life. He had no
fear of fiends. He cared nothing for the guesses of inspired savages;
nothing for the threats or promises of the sainted and insane.
He enjoyed this life--the good things of this world--the clasp and
smile of friendship, the exchange of generous deeds, the reasonable
gratification of the senses--of the wants of the body and mind. He was
neither an insane ascetic nor a fool of pleasure, but walked the
golden path along the strip of verdure that lies between the deserts of
extremes.
With him to do right was not simply a duty, it was a pleasure. He had
philosophy enough to know that the quality of actions depends upon
their consequences, and that these consequences are the rewards and
punishments that no God can give, inflict, withhold or pardon.
He loved his country, he was proud of the heroic past, dissatisfied
with the present, and confident of the future. He stood on the rock
of principle. With him the wisest policy was to do right. He would not
compromise with wrong. He had no respect for political failures who
became reformers and decorated fraud with the pretence of philanthropy,
or sought to gain some private end in the name of public good. He
despised time-servers, trimmers, fawners and all sorts and kinds of
pretenders.
He believed in national honesty; in the preservation of public faith.
He believed that the Government should discharge every obligation--the
implied as faithfully as the expressed. And I would be unjust to his
memory if I did not say that he believed in honest money, in the best
money in the world, in pure gold, and that he despised with all his
heart financial frauds, and regarded fifty cents that pretended to be a
dollar, as he would a thief in the uniform of a policeman, or a criminal
in the robe of a judge.
He believed in liberty, and liberty for all. He pitied the slave and
hated the master; that is to say, he was an honest man. In the dark days
of the Rebellion he stood for the right. He loved Lincoln with all his
heart--loved him for his genius, his courage and his goodness. He
loved Conkling--loved him for his independence, his manhood, for his
unwavering courage, and because he would not bow or bend--loved him
because he accepted defeat with the pride of a victor. He loved Grant,
and in the temple of his heart, over the altar, in the highest niche,
stood the great soldier.
Nature was kind to our friend. She gave him the blessed gift of humor.
This filled his days with the climate of Autumn, so that to him even
disaster had its sunny side. On account of his humor he appreciated and
enjoyed the great literature of the world. He loved Shakespeare, his
clowns and heroes. He appreciated and enjoyed Dickens. The characters of
this great novelist were his acquaintances. He knew them all; some were
his friends and some he dearly loved. He had wit of the keenest
and quickest. The instant the steel of his logic smote the flint of
absurdity the spark glittered. And yet, his wit was always kind.
The flower went with the thorn. The targets of his wit were not made
enemies, but admirers.
He was social, and after the feast of serious conversation he loved the
wine of wit--the dessert of a good story that blossomed into mirth. He
enjoyed games--was delighted by the relations of chance--the curious
combinations of accident. He had the genius of friendship. In his nature
there was no suspicion. He could not be poisoned against a friend.
The arrows of slander never pierced the shield of his confidence. He
demanded demonstration. He defended a friend as he defended himself.
Against all comers he stood firm, and he never deserted the field until
the friend had fled. I have known many, many friends--have clasped the
hands of many that I loved, but in the journey of my life I have never
grasped the hand of a better, truer, more unselfish friend than he who
lies before us clothed in the perfect peace of death. He loved me living
and I love him now.
In youth we front the sun; we live in light without a fear, without a
thought of dusk or night. We glory in excess. There is no dread of loss
when all is growth and gain. With reckless hands we spend and waste and
chide the flying hours for loitering by the way.
The future holds the fruit of joy; the present keeps us from the feast,
and so, with hurrying feet we climb the heights and upward look with
eager eyes. But when the sun begins to sink and shadows fall in front,
and lengthen on the path, then falls upon the heart a sense of loss, and
then we hoard the shreds and crumbs and vainly long for what was cast
away. And then with miser care we save and spread thin hands before
December's half-fed flickering flames, while through the glass of time
we moaning watch the few remaining grains of sand that hasten to their
end. In the gathering gloom the fires slowly die, while memory dreams of
youth, and hope sometimes mistakes the glow of ashes for the coming of
another morn.
But our friend was an exception. He lived in the present; he enjoyed
the sunshine of to-day. Although his feet had touched the limit of
four-score, he had not reached the time to stop, to turn and think:
about the traveled road. He was still full of life and hope, and had the
interest of youth in all the affairs of men.
He had no fear of the future--no dread. He was ready for the end. I have
often heard him repeat the words of Epicurus: "Why should I fear death?
If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not. Why should I fear that
which cannot exist when I do?"
If there is, beyond the veil, beyond the night called death, another
world to which men carry all the failures and the triumphs of this life;
if above and over all there be a God who loves the right, an honest man
has naught to fear. If there be another world in which sincerity is a
virtue, in which fidelity is loved and courage honored, then all is well
with the dear friend whom we have lost.
But if the grave ends all; if all that was our friend is dead, the
world is better for the life he lived. Beyond the tomb we cannot see. We
listen, but from the lips of mystery there comes no word. Darkness and
silence brooding over all. And yet, because we love we hope. Farewell!
And yet again, Farewell!
And will there, sometime, be another world? We have our dream. The idea
of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart,
beating with its countless waves against the sands and rocks of time
and fate, was not born of any book or of any creed. It was born of
affection. And it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and
clouds of doubt and darkness, as long as love kisses the lips of death.
We have our dream!